A Feast for Odin - Norwegians Tutorial & Playthrough - JonGetsGames

Here is my A Feast for Odin with Norwegians expansion tutorial & playthrough! This video was requested and voted on by the Contributing Producer supporters of the channel at patreon.com/jongetsgames
Teaching Timestamps:
Phase 1: New Vikings - 2:07
Phase 2: Harvest - 2:28
Phase 3: Update Exploration Boards - 4:17
Phase 4: New Weapons - 4:38
Phase 5: Take Actions - 4:59
Phase 6: New Start Player - 21:22
Phase 7: Income - 21:36
-Tile placement restrictions also explained in this section
Phase 8: Animal Breeding - 24:40
Phase 9: The Feast - 25:04
Phase 10: Gain Bonuses - 26:42
Phase 11: Update Mountain Strips - 27:00
Phase 12: Return Vikings - 27:22
Round 2 - 27:30
Round 3 - 43:41
Round 4 - 1:00:40
Round 5 - 1:17:54
Round 6 - 1:33:44
Round 7 - 1:50:00
Final Scoring - 2:03:18
Wrap up - 2:08:08
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[@JWentu]

I must say you are always EXTREMELY clear in your explanation. When I wanted to prepare this, I saw your face in the thumbnail and I clicked it immediately with a "I remember this guy, he's great when explaining complex games". My compliments for the clarity and enjoyability of your explanation

[@JonGetsGames]

Thank you for the compliments, I'm glad you found this useful. I hope you enjoy the game!

[@AJ-pn9dm]

One thing to note: you can place tiles/silver on your boards between the income and bonus phases. There were a couple times where you lamented that you were short on silver for unlocking a bonus but you could have easily gotten them using your income.

[@klaus3856]

Best play through of any game I have seen. Clear video, great use of zoom, good light, great editing, no motion sickness inducement (this has happened).

[@nickbrown8892]

Jon's play throughs are the very best available. I have learnt many games from watching Jon's channel.

[@fredrikdersten9401]

I just love A Feast For Odin, especially with the expansion. And now I can't wait to get to play that again. And you are brilliant when doing playthroughs, informative but still "simple" and very easy to understand. And I think you are really good a showing all the actions in any game you playthrough. Thanks, I love your playthroughs and vlogs.

[@BGBarbarian]

Playing this game as both players is quite an epic task! Good job.

[@azariusflashfang5716]

I greatly enjoy this combination of worker placement, set collection, and even a tile laying puzzle. I love how it gives you so many things to consider and think about with regards of how to get the various tiles you need and synergies between occupations and actions that really do give you a sense of direction of what general direction you should be aiming. I wish more games gave this much variety in terms of paths to take. Excellent playthrough and demonstration as always.

[@JonGetsGames]

I fully agree, this game has blown me away. I really liked the base game but the Norwegians expansion has pushed it up to possibly being my current #1 game, it is just brilliant!

[@CaughtByYourself]

Hands down the best boardgame Channel on KZbin. Your playthroughs always show all strengths and weaknesses of a game. Your videos dictate a lot of my ks decisions and so far it was always correct to back or cancel. I know it doesn't fit to that video, but I just wanted to say how much I appreciate your channel

[@JonGetsGames]

Thank you :) This is great to hear.

[@Penchwintan33]

Best playthrough video - for any game - I've ever seen! I love your channel, Jon! I'm playing Feast today and I feel well prepared to teach it to friends after watching this video.

[@JonGetsGames]

I hope the play went well, thanks for the kind words :)

[@PeterMller1980]

A very nice playthrough Jon. Thanks for doing it! :)

[@LeoLewis]

Wonderful playthrough! Thank you!

[@pierrewhite2062]

I did enjoy this playthrough! Thank you.

[@lhorbrum1818]

The GOAT of tutorials. Your videos are the reason i own so many board games! Thank you!

[@JonGetsGames]

:D Thank you so much.

[@severngamingnetwork]

a BRILLIANT job once again Jon; I enjoy the actual game that you are playing through as much as the tutorial aspect, which is almost a bonus to the enjoyment of watching the game unfold!

[@partypao]

26:00 I could understand that Vikings do like to eat a variety of food, and that the same food type would be wasted. But realistically, I can imagine Viking warriors would like more mead that they can possibly drink (and would not waste one drop of it!). So I think a fun house rule would be that multiple mead can be placed sideways.

[@rob__rob_5131]

I like watching your videos to find games that I never have heard of before, and your playthroughs help me decide whether or not the game will be a good fit for my style!

[@JonGetsGames]

Good to hear, I hope you get a chance to try this one. It's one of my favorites.

[@allison2525]

I appreciate this very much. Just got the game and loved your play through (like all of them). Thanks!

[@ositodefelpa2865]

Outstanding job, well done!

[@TyvanTV]

I still have this on my BUY list but the price has to go down! Of course great video as always.

[@olivertremel9869]

Thank you for this great video, it helped me a lot. Still great after all the years!

[@hannahbeertz1231]

Amazing job. I finally bought this game with expansion (I was waiting for a bit of a sale since it is so expensive). I watched this after playing one solo game , and I realized that I missed a few things (partially explains my low score) but now thanks to you I can correct them going into a two-player game. I know also after reading the forums on BGG and watching this how to make use of those islands to improve my engine.

[@joellen5984]

Fabulous playthrough! I'm ready to go and play on my own now (sure I will make some mistakes - but this has set me up well!). Thank you!!

[@JonGetsGames]

Awesome, I hope you enjoy the game!

[@JedrekVRoscoe]

I got the Norwegians expansion because of your enthusiasm for it in a previous video. So excited about this, thanks!

[@dOm0K]

Just bought this game last two weeks ago and learned how to play from your video. Keep up the good work! Easily one of my top 5-10 favorite game now

[@victorybhg]

good stuff jon, watching this the second time to understand the rules, have it in preorder along with norwegians

[@travelinwithTODD]

your videos are the best on the internet! they help me learn a game so much. clear, precise and everything is explained. so good. thank you so much.

[@Skycroft1000]

1:49:41 This is wrong, though I've seen many playthroughs that make this mistake. The rulebook says a horrifyingly misleading phrase in this section that causes widespread misunderstanding, but the designers have clarified on BGG and elsewhere that what they were _trying_ to say is that if at the *start* of phase 11 there is a mountain strip with only the last money, you remove the money and the strip. That is, you just remove the leftmost item and then if the strip is empty you remove it, but they said it in a rather poor fashion. Also, it's called a "thing penalty" because 'Things' are what the old Germanic peoples, such as the Norse/Vikings, called town gathering and meetings where issues were aired and discussed etc. So it's people complaining about the lack of food at the town hall, basically. Fun fact, the English word 'thing' has the same root and indeed the same root meaning, but the Germanic word refers to a gathering/collection of _people_ while the English word refers to a bunch of _stuff_ . Fantastic job with a very complicated game. Like you I think Norwegians potentially makes this my all time favorite game. I've played it a _lot_ so there were several moments when I winced at some moves you made, but it's easy to criticize from the bench and it can't have been easy making good moves for two people. I do think especially the blue player should have been slaughtering more rather than upgrading, but this game is deep and I'm still working out new strats after months of play.

[@JonGetsGames]

Huh, that really is awefully worded! I'm glad to know that I'm not the only one to make this mistake. I'll add a correction into the Klingon subtitles, I think I may have mentioned my incorrect understanding of that rule a couple times unfortunately. Interesting information about the "Thing" penalties, here I just thought it was a strange translation goof. This was only my 2nd play of Norwegians and I believe I only had 5 or so plays of the base game under my belt at this point too. This means I feel comfortable with the systems but am still pretty far from getting close to optimal play. I'm sure some of my moves were tactically and strategicly questionable and in some instances this was due to me forcing a mechanic to be used so that I could show it to the viewers. I imagine there were many times were I was also just not playing well, I will admit that I essentially never used animals in the base game so the idea of knowing when is best to take slaughter actions is still well beyond me unfortunately. I am curious, can you go into a bit more detail about why slaughtering would have been better then the Blue players focus on upgrades?

[@Skycroft1000]

@@JonGetsGames It's not necessarily that slaughtering is always better than upgrading (though it is actually just flat out better to slaughter a horse, since you get the same green piece you would have anyway) as I thought the slaughter space was underutilized. Blue's cards made upgrading even better for them and they by all means should have utilized it, but had they slaughtered first they would have ended up with even more overall, including more and larger blue goods. Slaughtering is just a very good 1-viking action. It's a lot easier to work in a slaughter every couple of rounds and still do other stuff than letting animals build up and upgrading them all at once at a later turn. Especially because it means you get the goods sooner rather than later. Having said that, I think that while Norwegians does a _lot_ to make animals more viable and easier to use with things like the slaughter space and the changes to how the market actions work, animals are still probably the hardest strategy to pursue. So even though I've played a lot more than you, I'm not sure I can really say I've learned to use animals well.

[@JonGetsGames]

@@Skycroft1000 Thanks for the extensive reply, I appreciate your strategic perspective here. I look forward to trying to trying to utilize the slaughter action more in future games :)

[@Thesteadfast]

Great stuff, probably going to finally take the plunge and get the base game.

[@doity]

Great video! Just a small rules correction: the long mountain strip is supposed to be used ONLY in the last round. My source is on the forums, the designer of the expansion said it. That's why it's longer than the other mountain strips.

[@JonGetsGames]

Huh, I just found the thread you are mentioning. It appears this strip was accidentally misprinted and has one more set of silver on it than intended. I'll use it in the final round in the future when playing 4p, thanks for the heads up.

[@tkumar9067]

brilliant run through!! thanks

[@pdv457]

Amazing job

[@mikeschmidt9298]

Thanks Jon!

[@antondovydaitis2261]

Domo Arigato, Jon-sama! Very useful.

[@gingerconspiracy]

Great video again Jon! One more quick pronunciation note, Islay is an Scottish Island known for it's whisky and is pronounced ai-luh.

[@AlexNguyen]

Great video

[@Syb3r]

great video. thx

[@hootsmcgee7896]

well friggin done!!

[@the_luggage]

Jongetsgames + A Feast of Odin = heaven! My favourite reviewer and my favourite game :D

[@JonGetsGames]

:) I'm glad you enjoyed it. The game really is wonderful!

[@sevatatarenkov7246]

Your videos are always really clear, if you ever have time you should do a review for something like the Next War Series which is absurdly difficult to learn

[@JonGetsGames]

Thanks Seva, I'm glad you've found them clear. I unfortunately have no personal interest in war games though, so I doubt any will be covered on this channel.

[@redeyedghost1406]

Rules clarification: weapon cards are supposed to be stored face up, so @17:00 we would have already known that the blue player had two bows and arrows in hand. It's listed under Phase 4 on page 9 of the base game's rulebook.

[@redeyedghost1406]

Just finished. Great job running two players, that had to be very complicated.

[@JonGetsGames]

Huh, this is something I've been playing wrong for many games now. Thanks for the note, I'll add a correction into the klingon subtitles.

[@redeyedghost1406]

@@JonGetsGames I didn't notice that until I reread the rules after having played it multiple times as well (in addition to a few other things as well).

[@trentvansant2250]

Just finished the playthrough and loved it. Have you noticed that scores have been higher with the expansion? Horses seem huge! Pigs seem incredible too as pieces to surround bonus spots. Man I love everything about this expansion and it's on my must have list.

[@JonGetsGames]

I have noticed the scores being higher, though this is only my second play. I did play Norwegians with a friend who had played the base game with me recently and the gap between those two scores was 39 points (130 to 169!) and I imagine a big part of that was the added point makers in this expansion.

[@Palek83]

Hey there. Thank you for a great playthrough. I know it's already kind of old, but I noticed a mistake not mentioned by klingons. At 1:47:57 you show a board filled by blue and he put green "skin and bones" next to the green "oil barrel" (cheeter ;)). As far as I remember, he should receive -3 token penalty at the end of the game for this :)

[@JonGetsGames]

Ah, good catch! I've added a not to the Klingon subtitles now, thanks.

[@tlleitner]

The Thing (pronounced Ting) was a political assembly. If memory serves, I think it’s explained somewhere in the rule book.

[@JonGetsGames]

Huh, good to know thanks.

[@pabs8345]

Small correction at 25:57. During feasting subsequent identical tiles are rotated to their shortest side so the 2nd mead tile should cover one space not two.

[@JonGetsGames]

I believe there is a text correction about this on screen already, unless I'm misunderstanding the correction you are pointing out.

[@faru_han6950]

Can you review the new expansion for plague inc? Plague inc: Armageddon expansion

[@worm1618]

If you assign two workers to the 5th column exploration space (2-player side), are you allowed to take an exploration board that would normally require a 2nd column action?

[@JonGetsGames]

I'm sorry, I don't remember the specifics of that action space at this point anymore.

[@Skippan]

Using two vikings only grants you the bonus of playing an occupation card. The 5th column exploration only allows you to take islands with the same printed symbol -including from the Mini-expansions 1 and 2

[@trentvansant2250]

1:54:40 usually boat liquidation is a bad thing

[@baileynimmrichter8036]

At 27:16, it is mentioned that if the second last resource is removed and the last remaining resource on the mountain strip is in fact coin, the strip is removed entirely. I cannot find this rule in the base game, or expansion, where did this rule come from? I know I'm a bit late to the party, but love the game and love the review!

[@JonGetsGames]

This sent me down a rabbit hole! I have the original printing and it mentioned this in the "Update Mountain Strips" section. I downloaded the current rulebook and it doesn't say this at all. Finally I found this forum thread which cleared things up: boardgamegeek.com/thread/1647297/updating-mountain-strips . It seems the original printing was interpreted incorrectly by most (including me) so the updated it. I'll add a note about this to the Klingon subtitles, thanks for bringing it up.

[@baileynimmrichter8036]

@@JonGetsGames thank you so much!!

[@Jburton561]

The belt you crafted in column five is not a crafting item. It does not have tongues on it

[@ForsakenProductions]

Enjoyed watching this. One thing, Hebrides is pronounced Heb-ri-dees. I know it's not obvious from the spelling but to save you offending any locals you might bump into. =p

[@JonGetsGames]

Good to know, thanks! I'm glad you enjoyed the play :)

[@ErmacFellwalker]

I was going to say the same thing. Being a Brit, we have to know this

[@KutaPuta]

Thank you was thinking of getting this but its a bit pricey

[@Ranhert]

If you love/like A Feast for Odin than I highly recommend Norwegians. It really is like a version 2.0 of the game and the new action board not only tightened things up slightly but made the game easier to teach/comprehend for new players.

[@trentvansant2250]

At 40:30 I thought that red and orange resources cant touch on sheds. I want this expansion so badly!

[@JonGetsGames]

The icon does make it look like red and orange can't touch, but this isn't actually the case. They simply can't be orthogonally adjacent to one of their own color. You can find clarification of this in this thread: boardgamegeek.com/thread/1990770/red-and-orange-orthogonal-house-tiles. It's a great expansion, I highly recommend it :)

[@trentvansant2250]

@@JonGetsGames wow I've been playing the base game incorrectly then to my detriment. That makes sheds way better Wish that the diagram was more clear by having red/orange goods touching.

[@renefrank3030]

1:56:11 I think you are not allowed to get to this Raiding space without having a proper ship according to the rules on page 17 "Raiding"

[@BrianD0313]

I don't know why you keep on referring to the Red player as "Us", I am all for Team Blue :D I feel like you sabotaged my boy there :P I can only imagine how long this game would be with three players. I'm so glad you did a playthrough of this game. I have always been interested in the game but just overwhelmed by it and I've never been able to find a good playthrough. Now I feel more comfortable with trying this game. Question: For those bricks of 10 coins, are you allowed to break them up into individual units as you see fit?

[@BoardgameswithNiramas]

Haha I kinda felt Blue had a better start also!

[@Glazius7]

Yes, you can freely "make change" between different sizes of silver hack. It's noted in the game rules as an action you can take any time.

[@BrianD0313]

@@Glazius7 so when you say "Action" does that mean it's a FREE ACTION or does the player have to burn some sort of turn?

[@Glazius7]

@@BrianD0313 If I'm understanding "free action" correctly, you would call it a free action. You put guys on the board in turn, but there's general housekeeping and utility stuff that you can do regardless of whose turn it is. The rules calls what you can do on the board "viking actions"; everything else is just an action, including anytime abilities you get from blue occupations. Though some of them, like Chronicler to turn two flax into a belt, can't be done during Viking actions so you can't just poach the belt away from somebody.

[@phadestonkaneki9861]

So my bro and I are arguing about the rules on occupation cards and would like some clarification. I believe that once played a card cannot be removed from play and that the card effects have different requirements to use the effects. My brother believes that you remove from play a card that has resolved its effect through its requirements and you add the points for every time it's used. We are new players but I believe I'm right and would like some clarity on this situation.

[@JonGetsGames]

I don't fully understand your question, but can say that each card can be played at most once per game. Some cards have ongoing effects while others do something immediately and then stay in play and unusable for the rest of the game.

[@Glazius7]

1:31:06 As convenient as it is, you can't take the belt. It's worth less than 9 sword value, but it doesn't have a forge tongs symbol on it.

[@JonGetsGames]

Good catch! I made that mistake during setup and didn't notice while playing unfortunately. I've added a note about this to the Klingon subtitles, thanks for pointing it out.

[@dsweet5273]

26:24 wouldn’t that second mead have to be turned vertically because it’s the second one?

[@JonGetsGames]

Huh, you are correct! I'm always surprised when mistakes are spotted so later on, it seems over 15,000 other people including me missed this :P I've added a note to the Klingon subtitles, thanks for pointing it out.

[@dsweet5273]

JonGetsGames hah yeah... I was hesitant to make that comment because I was thinking that surely someone would have caught this after a year! Love your videos and this was yet another great video man! Excellent tutorial and very entertaining to watch!

[@JymmGarner]

57:54 -- you said for Limerick that he had to continue to left, but the area I highlighted in blue (in this picture oi65.tinypic.com/2woairs.jpg ) wasn't filled in. Also he left two spots below the two coins above the blue 2x3 tile empty (shown in purple on the picture above). How are each legal moves to get the game meat bonus?

[@JonGetsGames]

These are legal because you only have to fill in everything to the left when you cover up new income spaces. Since those placements surrounded a bonus but didn't cover any income slots they were able to do this without filling things in to the left (and below).

[@JymmGarner]

Ahhhh I see what I missed. Thanks

[@Glazius7]

1:16:06 Sorry to come in so late with this, but I was just rewatching the video. It's actually possible for Blue to make some progress on their main board, though it does leave them in a bit of an awkward position later on. Here's how they do it: - the 2x1 oil lies down in the crucifix, diagonally adjacent to the other oil. - the 3x1 hide goes along the bottom of their board under the stone bonus - the 3x2 skin and bones goes longways under the runestone bonus, so it's not touching the hide - their single silver goes to the right of the stone bonus to plug the gap - this lets them cover the 4 and 5 income spaces with the hammer, with the handle extending down toward the stone bonus. But this is an awkward setup, with a big jagged green bit to worry about later on. A better play might have been to take the 1-viking 2-upgrade action, trading the herbs for a pig and the skin and bones for a blue spices (which can rotate to go on top the hide), then buy a sheep with a 2-viking action. Or if they had even one more silver left over, they could put the skin and bones in the bottom corner against the stone bonus, and put a silver under the stone bonus and under the runestone bonus; that would also let them cover the 4 and 5 income. This isn't to disparage your play at all. A Feast For Odin is a very complex game and it's hard enough to play it and do well for just one person, never mind two at a time! It's just that it's also so open that a couple of decisions can completely change the trajectory of the game.

[@JonGetsGames]

I'm glad you liked the video enough to watch a second time, thanks for showing another good option there :)

[@thegametrainer9004]

59:22 blue forgets to get his bonus coin from his sober occupation card (unless Klingons isn’t working for me)

[@JonGetsGames]

Looks like you are right, it took over 16,000 views before this was found! Thanks for pointing it out, I've added a note to the Klingon subtitles.

[@eugeniomariopazielli8478]

you cannot place two identical resources in the same direction but one vertically and one horizontally in the banquet

[@eugeniomariopazielli8478]

Feast round 1

[@JonGetsGames]

Yeah, that is correct. There is a correction for this already in the Klingon subtitles. I generally recommend those be turned on so that mistakes like this can have their corrections be seen.

[@cristiamalcala9191]

Bluel player has2 greens together

[@vast3394]

meanwhile me sitting at -11 points

[@TerAsss]

Robot voice?

[@LetterheadStudios]

It does sound like it's sped up a little. The artifaces left behind give the voice this rising bubble sound, but it could just be the quality of his voice/mic, etc. If it is, it's probably sped up to keep the video length down.

[@danpalmer7676]

You're right about butchering Hebrides....It's Heb.....ree.....deez...Good try though.